Everybody
wants it; few achieve it. The subject is intimacy, and it's a buzzword of the
'90s, as if it were the quid pro quo for cashing out of the consumer culture.
Perhaps it's because we mistakenly pursue relationships as though they were financial
transactions.
Most
folks approach intimacy like equity, says sex researcher David Schnarch, Ph.D,,
clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Louisiana State University. But
that just about guarantees they'll never achieve the intense eroticism they are
lusting for in long-term relationships. Equity implies reciprocity. Real intimacy
takes strictly one-sided risks.
The
hitch is this: We trust intimacy develops through self-disclosure--two souls equally
baring their innermost insecurities and expecting the glow of warmth and acceptance.
That's actually a quest for reassurance that we are worth loving, an "I will
if you will" tally to avoid rejection. We seek someone to help carry the
burden of a dissatisfying relationship with ourselves.
This
"other-validated intimacy" not only promotes emotional fusion, a "we"
mindset, it yields only a low level of satisfaction. In reality, one partner always
needs validation more, the other builds up resentment against the obligation to
reciprocate disclosure. They get paralyzed in defensiveness and withholding.
Forget
expectations of reciprocity and all that gooey stuff, says Schnarch in a book
for sex therapists, Constructing the Sexual Crucible (Norton). Profound intimacy
takes individual growth, an independent sense of self--the kind of ego strength
that lets us dance autonomously without fearing a partner's response. Intimacy
is not the search for care from others but the ability to display our inner life
to our partner.
With
at least one partner capable of sustained self-disclosure, there's a chance for
expanding the sexual repertoire, which at first tends to be very disquieting,
eliciting a " where'd you learn to do that?" response. "People
have boring, monotonous sex because intense sex and intimacy (and change itself)
is more threatening than many people realize," says Schnarch.
The
bottom line is that good sex doesn't just happen when you're relaxed. And all
the garter belts in the world won't stimulate the really hot stuff. Sex is not
a matter of paraphernalia but persona.
